6 / IInd LINEE CONFERENCE

Multilingualism in the Public Sphere

Rosita Schjerve-Rindler, University of Vienna, AustriaIwar Werlen, University of Bern, SwitzerlandAnita Sujoldžić, Institute of Anthropological Research Zagreb, CroatiaAnna Fennyvesi, University of Szeged, HungaryRita Franceschini, Free University of Bozen – Bolzano, ItalyJiri Nekvapil, Charles University Prague, Czech RepublicPatrick Stevenson, University of Southampton, United KingdomPeter Weber, University of Calw, Germany

Conference description:

LINEE (Languages in a Network of European Excellence) is a scientific network aimed at investigating linguistic diversity in Europe in a coherent and interdisciplinary way. Following on a very successful international conference on New Challenges for Multilingualism organized by LINEE in 2010 in Dubrovnik, it has been decided to organise the second international conference in 2012 again in Dubrovnik to continue to critically examine the concept of multilingualism in the context of complex cultural and linguistic diversity characterized by mobility, migration and minorities, and to propose further theoretical and research perspectives.

The objective of this second international conference is to provide a forum for researchers studying multilingualism as social practice in various public spaces to rethink the concept of ‘language’, and its role in fostering social cohesion. The conference will gather 100-120 researchers who investigate plurilingual communication from a perspective that seeks to critically address power relations and includes different types of public spaces as concrete empirical settings, each with their specific contribution to communication across linguistic and cultural boundaries, such as: public places (shops, markets, tourist sites); field of economy and work-organizations; functional/sectoral public arenas of differentiated service-provision (such as education, health-care, administration etc.) and media.